To use the Spring Boot Maven Plugin simply include the appropriate XML in the plugins section of your pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <!-- ... -->
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.1.0.RC1</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>repackage</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

This configuration will repackage a jar or war that is built during the package phase of the Maven lifecycle. The following example shows both the repackaged jar, as well as the original jar, in the target directory:

$ mvn package
$ ls target/*.jar
target/myproject-1.0.0.jar target/myproject-1.0.0.jar.original

If you don’t include the <execution/> configuration as above, you can run the plugin on its own (but only if the package goal is used as well). For example:

$ mvn package spring-boot:repackage
$ ls target/*.jar
target/myproject-1.0.0.jar target/myproject-1.0.0.jar.original

If you are using a milestone or snapshot release you will also need to add appropriate pluginRepository elements:

<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>spring-snapshots</id>
        <url>http://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
    </pluginRepository>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>spring-milestones</id>
        <url>http://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

Once spring-boot-maven-plugin has been included in your pom.xml it will automatically attempt to rewrite archives to make them executable using the spring-boot:repackage goal. You should configure your project to build a jar or war (as appropriate) using the usual packaging element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <!-- ... -->
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <!-- ... -->
</project>

Your existing archive will be enhanced by Spring Boot during the package phase. The main class that you want to launch can either be specified using a configuration option, or by adding a Main-Class attribute to the manifest in the usual way. If you don’t specify a main class the plugin will search for a class with a public static void main(String[] args) method.

To build and run a project artifact, you can type the following:

$ mvn package
$ java -jar target/mymodule-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

To build a war file that is both executable and deployable into an external container you need to mark the embedded container dependencies as “provided”, e.g:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <!-- ... -->
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <!-- ... -->
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- ... -->
    </dependencies>
</project>

Advanced configuration options and examples are available in the plugin info page.